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Can't go wrong with an ESB! 10lbs Maris Otter or Golden Promise .75-1lbs of a mix of lighter and darker crystal, whatever tickles your fancy. I'm brewing one today and going with 6oz each of C40 and C120, I like mine a bit darker and more caramelly I like a bit of biscuit malt in my bitters, ~.5lbs, but that's optional You could also add some wheat for texture and head, that's not an uncommon ingredient Mash at 152-154* for an hour. Couple of ounces of EKG @ first wort to get 25-30IBUs, then some @15 and @5. Depending on how much hoppiness you want, could be anywhere from .25oz-1oz at each of the last two. Nottingham, WLP002, WLP023, Thames II, basically any English strain should be good. Basically think about what you want from your beer and you can (or we can help you) pick ingredients and processes based on that. If you haven't already, pick up Radical Brewing. It'll teach you how to create a recipe on your own. indigi fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Sep 24, 2011 |
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Sep 24, 2011 14:50
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Wow this thread (and its predecessors) have an awesome amount of information! Me and two of my friends just bought starter kits on a Groupon, and we're all pretty excited to do our first brew (recipe kit that came with starter kit) this weekend. We've agreed to compete on our second batch though, that we'll be assembling the ingredients for ourselves. I'd like to try to do a GumballHead (Three Floyds Brewing american wheat) clone, but change it up a little and maybe add some pumpkin flavor to it. What's the best way to pumpkin it up a little? Is there any good way to flavor it during bottling, so I can maybe do have the batch plain, and half pumpkin?
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Sep 24, 2011 15:38
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James Bont posted:Also, if anybody knows offhand what size false bottom I need for a 5 gallon cylinder coleman cooler that'd be great, otherwise though I'll just drag it along to the homebrew shop sunday and see which one fits best haha. It's pretty small - I think it's like a 9" diameter. You'd probably be best off dragging along the cooler anyway.
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Sep 24, 2011 15:39
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JohnnySmitch posted:What's the best way to pumpkin it up a little? Is there any good way to flavor it during bottling, so I can maybe do have the batch plain, and half pumpkin? Pumpkin itself doesn't really have a very distinct flavor, and I assume you're working from extract, so I suggest you leave actual pumpkin out of the beer for now. What you can do, though, is make a spice tincture by putting pumpkin pie type spices in some decent vodka for a few weeks, then add the tincture at bottling time to some or all of the batch.
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Sep 24, 2011 15:48
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JohnnySmitch posted:Wow this thread (and its predecessors) have an awesome amount of information! "Pumpkin" flavor mostly comes from pumpkin pie spices - cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc. You can either buy dried spices at the store and add at the end of the boil, or make a tincture by soaking whole spices in vodka or everclear for a few days/weeks, straining, and adding a measured amount of the tincture when bottling. The tincture method is usually preferred, as you get much better control over how much spice ends up in your beer. If you want to do a batch half and half, a tincture is definitely the way to go.
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Sep 24, 2011 15:52
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Sirotan posted:So holy crap, its been 8 days since I bottled my first homebrew and I just popped the first bottle. It...it tastes like beer! And good beer! Its quite hoppy but a bit sweet still. Amazing how much the taste has changed in only one week. I can't wait to see how it continues to develop. Hurrah Beer! Welcome. Don't forget to start your second batch. Trust me.
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Sep 24, 2011 16:38
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Listen to that man. Five gallons seems like a lot, then suddenly it's gone and you have to wait six weeks for the next batch.
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Sep 24, 2011 16:54
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I have a high alcohol fermentation that is blowing krausen out of my 3 piece air lock. I've heard of people putting sanitized tin-foil on top and replacing it when things are less aggressive. Am I ok? Also, I sampled my young pumpkin beer and I can definitely taste the pumpkin despite every saying that you can't. It's definitely a squashy taste.
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Sep 24, 2011 18:07
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indigi posted:Can't go wrong with an ESB! Hey there ESB buddy  I'll be brewing this tomorrow:code:
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Sep 24, 2011 20:05
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A lot of grains claim to give a red hue to beer, but the only one I've used that actually gives a nice ruby redness as opposed to a burnt sienna type color is small amounts of roast barley. What say everyone else?
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Sep 24, 2011 20:43
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Brew day tomorrow, will try to make something IPAish Malts: 3kg light extract (Coopers) 1.5kg amber extract (Coopers) Hops: 30g Centennial (10%) for 60 min 50g Challenger (8.08%) for 15 min 50g Cascade (6.3%) for 2 min Yeast: Pacific Ale (WLP041) Does this sound ok? I'm not too experienced with various hops yet, so any comments from the pros are welcomed. Also I can only boil about 10l so the gravity when boiling will be drat high, will this have any effect on the hopping? Can I compensate for this somehow?
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Sep 24, 2011 21:40
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Jo3sh posted:It's pretty small - I think it's like a 9" diameter. You'd probably be best off dragging along the cooler anyway. Yeah, that's what I read on I think northernbrewer or something earlier but I'll just bring the cooler anyways. So I'm thinking since I haven't really done anything hoppy yet I'll do a pale ale, I'll probably use all marris otter. I'd like for it to have just a little richness to it though since it's not really spring/ summer any more, so a little more body/ sweetness is what I'm looking for I guess. What would be the best way to go about it, mash a little higher, maybe around 152 or something? Or throw in a little crystal? I'm using hopville and it seems like for my little 2.5-2.75 gallon batch 5 lbs of marris otter will do. Think I'll give the Thames Valley yeast a try, too. Anyways I don't wanna use your usual amarillo/ cascade sorta american hoppiness, any more unique varieties? I don't really care about staying totally historically accurate to the pale ale style, I just want good beer and something a little different than the usual west coast hop profile.
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Sep 24, 2011 21:43
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Can't go wrong with a noble hopped pale aleLrrr posted:
It'll reduce your utilization by a bunch, which will already be low due to a high OG. I plugged your numbers into beer calculus and you'd wind up with a 1.080 OG and ~17 IBUs. You'd have to up all your hop additions to ~100 grams to get into the realm of IPA bitterness. I'd say drop a kilo of the DME and up your Centennial to 50 grams, then do one more addition of Challenger or Cascade at 10 and you should be good. indigi fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Sep 24, 2011 |
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Sep 24, 2011 22:23
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James Bont posted:So I'm thinking since I haven't really done anything hoppy yet I'll do a pale ale, I'll probably use all marris otter. I'd like for it to have just a little richness to it though since it's not really spring/ summer any more, so a little more body/ sweetness is what I'm looking for I guess. What would be the best way to go about it, mash a little higher, maybe around 152 or something? Or throw in a little crystal? I'm using hopville and it seems like for my little 2.5-2.75 gallon batch 5 lbs of marris otter will do. Think I'll give the Thames Valley yeast a try, too. You could do a whole bunch worse than to scale j3rkstore's ESB recipe a few posts up to your batch size. ESB is not a super-hoppy beer by current standards, so if you just can't stand the idea of brewing non-hoppy beer, just tweak the hops upward to hit something like 50-60 IBU. The English hop varieties j3rkstore is specifying have a very different character than the citrus/pine thing a lot of American hops do, so you can use those if you want, or you can sub in American cultivars of English types, such as Mt. Hood or Willamette. If you just want to get totally away from the crowd, look into some of the hop varieties out of New Zealand and Japan (e.g., Riwaka and Sorachi Ace, respectively) - they are definitely a little different than most of what we see here. They may be hard to find, but if you see them, they might be worth a look. Whatever you choose, I suggest a nice dose of dry hops to really punch the aroma. 0.5 to 1 ounce in a 2.5 gallon batch should be plenty - add them after the ferment subsides, then hold the beer at ferment temps for another 10 to 14 days before packaging.
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Sep 24, 2011 22:35
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indigi posted:It'll reduce your utilization by a bunch, which will already be low due to a high OG. I plugged your numbers into beer calculus and you'd wind up with a 1.080 OG and ~17 IBUs. You'd have to up all your hop additions to ~100 grams to get into the realm of IPA bitterness. I'd say drop a kilo of the DME and up your Centennial to 50 grams, then do one more addition of Challenger or Cascade at 10 and you should be good. Its LME, not DME so thats about 900g less sugars than your calculations presume, so it shouldn't be as high as 1.080  The utilization reduction was higher than I expected though, so I'm gonna have to rethink that part anyway. Maybe I could boil the bittering hops just water in a different pot? Or maybe let the bittering hops boil alone for a while before adding the LME? Edit: I can increase hop amounts too, got 50g of the centennial, and 100g each of the others. Lrrr fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Sep 24, 2011 |
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Sep 24, 2011 22:42
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I think I've read that it should be wort, not water, that you boil the hops in, for sciencey reasons. You can always do a late addition of extract - put a little in at the beginning of the boil, hop away, and add the rest of the extract in the final minutes of the boil.
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Sep 24, 2011 22:49
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You can also add only a portion of your DME at the beginning of the boil - something like a third to a half - then add the rest toward the end. This will help your hop utilization for your bittering addition. E: or what waffles said right above me. Jo3sh fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Sep 24, 2011 |
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Sep 24, 2011 22:49
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Jo3sh posted:You could do a whole bunch worse than to scale j3rkstore's ESB recipe a few posts up to your batch size. ESB is not a super-hoppy beer by current standards, so if you just can't stand the idea of brewing non-hoppy beer, just tweak the hops upward to hit something like 50-60 IBU. The English hop varieties j3rkstore is specifying have a very different character than the citrus/pine thing a lot of American hops do, so you can use those if you want, or you can sub in American cultivars of English types, such as Mt. Hood or Willamette. Oh man, I didn't even see that ESB recipe, looks pretty much like exactly what I had in mind, I'll just scale it down and change up the hops. Or indigi's too now that I'm scrolling further up, they both look pretty good. Guess I should've refreshed before posting. Thanks guys. Dry hopping definitely sounds like a good idea. I really did like the aroma from the fuggles when I did my brown ale, I'm not really feeling like going totally english but they are nice. I'll keep an eye out for Riwaka and Sorachi Ace, they sound interesting. Even though it falls back in to west coast hop profile territory, I think I'll have to get some Simcoe if I see it. It's just so drat good. I want to keep my beers real simple though so I can get a good understanding of the ingredients, so marris otter, a little crystal or biscuit or something, 1-2 hops, and thames valley is what I'm looking at. Maybe I'll just say gently caress the pale ale, do the ESB, and go pure fuggle with some dry hopping action. It all sounds pretty good haha. Thanks again for the advice, I'll probably be brewing this some time later in the week.
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Sep 24, 2011 23:16
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Thanks for the advice all! I found a better brew calculator (http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe) and played around a bit with the variables and adding most of the malts later in the process seems like the way to go (at least if I'm gonna be a cheapskate and not use all my hops.) I think I'll boil the hops with just 1.5kg of the light LME and add the rest of the LME just before the last hop addition. With the same hop amounts and boil times Ill be looking at 54.6 IBUs and a OG of 1.054 according to the calculator.
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Sep 24, 2011 23:29
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Jo3sh posted:Pumpkin itself doesn't really have a very distinct flavor, and I assume you're working from extract, so I suggest you leave actual pumpkin out of the beer for now. What you can do, though, is make a spice tincture by putting pumpkin pie type spices in some decent vodka for a few weeks, then add the tincture at bottling time to some or all of the batch. I never thought of doing a vodka 'tincture' like that - that's a really cool idea. Anyone here done something similar before? I'm curious about how strong I should try to make it and how much of it I should add when bottling?
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Sep 24, 2011 23:54
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JohnnySmitch posted:I never thought of doing a vodka 'tincture' like that - that's a really cool idea. I've done it with hops before. Unfortunately, the answer to both is "to taste". What I'd suggest is to get a bottle of commercial beer of a similar style to what you made and add your tincture a little at a time until it tastes right.
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Sep 25, 2011 00:02
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Lrrr posted:Thanks for the advice all! I found a better brew calculator (http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe) and played around a bit with the variables and adding most of the malts later in the process seems like the way to go (at least if I'm gonna be a cheapskate and not use all my hops.) Make sure you kill the heat before adding the late LME to avoid scorching and/or massive boilovers
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Sep 25, 2011 00:37
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Jo3sh posted:You can also add only a portion of your DME at the beginning of the boil - something like a third to a half - then add the rest toward the end. This will help your hop utilization for your bittering addition. What else do late extract additions do? Is there an advantage to boiling all the extract at once? Why am I boiling it at all? What if I only put hops in the boil and added all my extract at 5 mins?
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Sep 25, 2011 01:21
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From what I have read, late extract additions also help prevent scorching. Less scorching means less off flavors and a lighter color beer. Wish I had known this before my extract Hefeweizen attempt. I was wondering why it came out so dark. Oh well... next time.
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Sep 25, 2011 02:50
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Bellagio Sampler posted:What else do late extract additions do? Is there an advantage to boiling all the extract at once? Why am I boiling it at all? What if I only put hops in the boil and added all my extract at 5 mins? Late extract additions will help your hop utilization in concentrated boils, and will also help your color remain pale. If you don't have any extract at all while you are boiling hops, you won't get the proper conversion of the alpha acids into iso-alpha acids. Some older recipes using pre-hopped extract do in fact call for no boil. This is called "dump and stir" - dump it all in and stir it up. There is physical and chemical magic that goes on in the boil, though, that is useful. Not the least among the effects is sanitation, but there are also benefits in clarity and other areas. The best bet for a concentrated boil seems to be to add enough extract to get to a moderate gravity, say 1.050 or so, for the bulk of the boil, then add the remainder at around 15 minutes from the end. As indigi points out, kill the heat when you are adding additional extract, as it will want to boil over.
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Sep 25, 2011 05:36
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Alarbus posted:add your tincture a little at a time until it tastes right. ... and shoot low rather than high, is my advice. You can always add more later, even in the glass if you want, but you can't take it away if you add too much by mistake.
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Sep 25, 2011 05:38
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indigi posted:A lot of grains claim to give a red hue to beer, but the only one I've used that actually gives a nice ruby redness as opposed to a burnt sienna type color is small amounts of roast barley. What say everyone else? It's not super common to find but carared or caraamber both give a really nice bright red color to a beer. I've had pretty much the same experiences as you and found out that my love of vienna makes for a nice base for a red beer. The vienna gets you to a light orange on it's own, then once you start adding in some darker character malts it gets into that nice red territory. I've actually decided recently after having a few beers come out too dark with me adding 2 oz of roast barley or carafa for color that I'm done with that poo poo. If I want to make a scottish ale and my grain bill is gonna get me a golden beer rather than red/brown unless I add a little roasted barley then my scottish ale is just gonna be golden. JohnnySmitch posted:I never thought of doing a vodka 'tincture' like that - that's a really cool idea. Get an eyedropper and when you go to bottle pull 12 oz of your beer out of the fermentor. Add a drop of the tincture to the glass and mix it in, and just continue that until you're satisfied with the taste. Then just multiply that out (there's 48 beers in 5 gallons) and add that amount to the bottom of the bottling bucket and rack your beer on top of it to get it mixed in well.
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Sep 25, 2011 14:43
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I am about to do my first brew in Seattle, where I just moved, when I realized the water here has a good amount of Chlorine in it just from the smell. In the past I've always mashed with tap and only used bottled for topping off. Here's the water report: http://www.seattle.gov/util/groups/public/@spu/@water/documents/webcontent/01_013138.pdf Will just boiling the water once before everything force the chlorine to evaporate out? should I avoid it totally? From looking around it seems like Chlorine is ok and boils out but Chloramine is bad and can't be boiled out but it doesn't look like I have that, at least I think. Searching on google pulls up a lot of homebrewtalk threads of people discussing Seattle water, with about half saying it needs treatment and causes a lot of bad flavors and half saying "it's fine! dwrhahb..." and a second question. I'm unpacking all my gear from moving and my wort chiller somehow got star san all over it, and it basically stayed on it, full strength. Caused a lot of blue/green oxidation all over the copper pipping. It wipes off mostly, but there's still some very obvious spots even after a lot of cleaning. is it still ok?
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Sep 25, 2011 18:43
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hbf posted:I am about to do my first brew in Seattle, where I just moved, when I realized the water here has a good amount of Chlorine in it just from the smell. Will just boiling the water once before everything force the chlorine to evaporate out? should I avoid it totally? I treat my brewing water by dissolving a crushed Campden tab in it. Campden tablets are cheap and a single tab will treat up to 20 gallons of tap water treated with either chlorine or chloramine.
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Sep 25, 2011 18:52
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Josh Wow posted:I've actually decided recently after having a few beers come out too dark with me adding 2 oz of roast barley or carafa for color that I'm done with that poo poo. If I want to make a scottish ale and my grain bill is gonna get me a golden beer rather than red/brown unless I add a little roasted barley then my scottish ale is just gonna be golden. It's one of those weird things - adding ingredients purely for color seems like cheating, but it's so tied to how most people think about beer. It's like the artificial smell they give gas. You almost need that color to know what you're drinking. I read about one of those experiments/pranks where they gave wine drinkers white wine that had red food coloring, with predictable results.
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Sep 25, 2011 19:15
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hbf posted:
after some googling, it turns out green oxidation on copper is really bad, and toxic. However, it looks like a good scrub with hot distilled white vinegar should take care of it thankfully.
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Sep 25, 2011 19:21
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Got my oatmeal stout on last night. Made this recipe: http://hopville.com/recipe/896731/oatmeal-stout-recipes/oatmeal-stout It was the trial run of my ice-chest style cooler with a really terrible manifold. Held temperature pretty well over the hour, and I was surprised as hell when I opened the valve and it started rapidly draining motor oil-looking wort that smelled like it should. Last night I learned that the color of the grist isn't exactly indicative of the color of the wort. I was even more surprised when I didn't get a single clog. Took a sample at the end of the boil and its OG weighed in at 1.050 putting my cooler process at about 61% efficiency. I recently inherited a 15.5gal keg, so I am going to get a false bottom and a valve for it and use it to get a better yield, but for now the cooler seems to work pretty ok. Pitched a package of Wyeast 1084 at about 70f and saw almost-instant airlock activity. I almost blew an airlock on a previous batch using 1084 so we fitted this one with a blow off hose. clutchpuck fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Sep 25, 2011 |
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Sep 25, 2011 19:45
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hbf posted:after some googling, it turns out green oxidation on copper is really bad, and toxic. However, it looks like a good scrub with hot distilled white vinegar should take care of it thankfully. Prep some StarSan at proper dilution and soak the chiller in it, it shines right up. As for Seattle water, untreated tap water should be A-OK. I always just use straight tap water and never have problems with flavor. clutchpuck fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Sep 25, 2011 |
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Sep 25, 2011 19:46
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Opened up my first batch, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's not just drinkable, it's actually pretty good! The only problem is that I was a little disappointed by the lack of strong taste... it really mellows out in the bottle. I've got an IPA and a Red Ale brewing right now, but after that maybe I'll try something with a higher IBU?
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Sep 25, 2011 21:30
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Does anyone have a good site to find extract recipes? I want to start and ESB, an Porter and several other styles, but I can't seem to find a reliable source of starter recipes to adapt.Jonked posted:Opened up my first batch, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's not just drinkable, it's actually pretty good! The only problem is that I was a little disappointed by the lack of strong taste... it really mellows out in the bottle. I've got an IPA and a Red Ale brewing right now, but after that maybe I'll try something with a higher IBU? What was your first batch?
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Sep 25, 2011 21:59
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TenjouUtena posted:Does anyone have a good site to find extract recipes? I want to start and ESB, an Porter and several other styles, but I can't seem to find a reliable source of starter recipes to adapt. The recipes on the beersmith site are categorized into all grain and extract, there's usually several extract recipes for every style
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Sep 25, 2011 22:09
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TenjouUtena posted:Does anyone have a good site to find extract recipes? It kind of galls me to say it, but the Zainasheff/Palmer book Brewing Classic Styles does actually have some good recipes to use as bases to work from - just check the numbers before you commit to quantities. You might also look at Ray Daniels' Designing Great Beers to get some ideas of what goes into a good (or at least winning) recipe.
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Sep 25, 2011 22:14
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I've always been a pretty big fan of the kits on the Northern Brewer site, I did those when I was first starting out and they were all at least good. You can view the contents of the kit as well, so you don't even have to buy from them to get the recipe. They have user reviews for the kits now as well, and if you go search in the forum for the name of the kit you can find several posts of people talking about them. Plus they recently started carrying rye malt extract so you can make an extract roggenbier for the first time ever!
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Sep 26, 2011 02:24
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Josh Wow posted:Northern Brewer is great for extract recipes! I second this. I live a few minutes from their store and use them for all my needs. Everything I have brewed from them has either been great or amazing. Another Minnesota store that I've had luck with is Midwest Supplies. They have their recipe lists posted as well. Brew Your Own usually has extract recipes alongside the all-grain version for their clones. I also did manage to find a free e-book copy of Clone Brews: Recipes of 200 Brand Name Beers. Every recipe was in extract and all-grain.
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Sep 26, 2011 03:04
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Hello brewers! I just got my first taste of this, and I love it. I got a Mr. Beer kit from my mother in law for my birthday, and I've been powering through that. I've got my 3rd batch fermenting (blackberry wheat) and my 2nd is carbonating. I'm really looking forward to having a LOT more fun with my new hobby. Where should I go from here? I know this has to be the ultra newb kit, so I'm trying to plan this so it's afordable and I upgrade properly. I'm thinking I'll look at getting some proper carboys and associated gear and still use the malt extracts for a while? Making my own seems to be way too advanced for me right now. I guess my question is, has anyone started here, and how did you move up?
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Sep 26, 2011 03:42
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